California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom addresses supporters with Mayor Ed Lee close by, in front of boxes filled with more than 600,000 voter signatures set for delivery to the San Francisco Department of Elections to qualify the Fair Wage Act of 2016 on the ballot, at City Hall in San Francisco , Calif., on Tues. January 19, 2016, less

California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom addresses supporters with Mayor Ed Lee close by, in front of boxes filled with more than 600,000 voter signatures set for delivery to the San Francisco Department of ... more

Mayor Ed Lee addresses supporters in front of boxes filled with more than 600,000 voter signatures set for delivery to the San Francisco Department of Elections to qualify the Fair Wage Act of 2016 on the ballot, at City Hall in San Francisco , Calif., on Tues. January 19, 2016, less

Mayor Ed Lee addresses supporters in front of boxes filled with more than 600,000 voter signatures set for delivery to the San Francisco Department of Elections to qualify the Fair Wage Act of 2016 on the ... more

Supporters of a $15-an-hour state minimum wage submitted signatures Tuesday to qualify the measure for the November ballot, setting the state for a contentious fight between labor and business groups.

The measure comes amid a broader debate over income inequality in the country, but also at a time when the state continues to recover from a deep recession. Gov. Jerry Brown has expressed concerns that a $15-an-hour minimum wage would dampen the recovery by raising businesses’ costs.

Supporters of the Fair Wage Act of 2016, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, waved away those concerns on Tuesday and framed the issue as a moral imperative, one affecting millions of low-wage workers.

“Who can live on $21,000 a year? Nobody can,” Lee said at a news conference at City Hall organized by the Service Employees International Union- United Healthcare Workers West, which crafted the measure. “People have the right to a decent wage, wherever they live in California.”

“This is the issue of our time — income inequality. There is no bigger threat,” Newsom echoed. He said that when San Francisco raised its minimum wage a decade ago, “everybody was out there saying the sky had fallen, that economic growth would be curtailed, that the city would no longer be its vibrant old self. Well, they were proven wrong.”

The state minimum wage increased from $9 to $10 an hour on Jan. 1. The proposed ballot measure would increase the wage by $1 an hour each Jan. 1 until it reaches $15 an hour in 2021. The minimum wage would be tied to inflation every year after that.

The proponents have until Jan. 27 to submit 365,880 valid signatures to county election officials statewide to get the measure on the ballot. County election officials then have eight working days to report the number of signatures to the secretary of state’s office.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union’s state council is collecting signatures for a competing ballot measure that would boost the hourly wage to $15 per hour by 2020, a year earlier than the one crafted by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. It remains to be seen how the two groups would reconcile the competing measures.

Currently, 13 cities and counties in California, including San Francisco, have minimum wages above $10 an hour. The ballot measure would not impact San Francisco workers because the minimum wage there is scheduled to reach $15 an hour on July 1, 2018.

But it would have an enormous impact statewide, according to the state’s legislative analyst, which studied the fiscal impacts of the measure. Roughly a quarter of California workers — around 4 million people — earn less than $13 an hour, according to the analyst, with most of those workers concentrated in inland California.

Juan Salcedo of San Jose is one worker who would benefit. He works 60 hours a week at Jack in the Box for $10.50 an hour and 30 hours at Walmart for $11.50 an hour. He said Tuesday at the news conference that the money doesn’t cover his living expenses, in particular the medicine he takes for his diabetes.

“The time to act is now,” he said.

While workers like Salcedo would see a boost in their earning power, the state budget analyst found that the economic effects of a $15 minimum wage “are highly uncertain,” and the change in annual sales tax revenue could range from a loss of several hundred million dollars to a gain of more than $1 billion.

Berkeley economist Michael Reich said economists and politicians are in new territory when it comes to analyzing the measure because it would take place on a scale not previously studied.

He said an economic analysis he performed last year of Los Angeles’ minimum wage, which will climb to $15 an hour by 2020, offered the best guidance. Reich found that the hike would result in prices climbing slightly and that most businesses would be able to absorb the increased costs.

The governor’s proposed 2016-17 budget, on the other hand, was more dire. It noted that a $15 minimum wage would cost the state’s general fund more than $4 billion annually by 2021, and would “require deeper cuts to the budget and exacerbate the recession by raising businesses’ costs.”

The governor has said he supports raising the minimum wage but says it must be done responsibly.

“Our membership is having a hard enough time dealing with the Jan. 1 increase to $10 an hour,” he said. “The numbers start adding up, whether it’s transferred to the price of food or your restaurant bill.”